


someone else is singing along

by thatiranianphantom



Series: je t'aime toujours [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Because I don't know how to say no, Bughead baby, F/F, F/M, I don't know when to stop apparently, I've got like 5 ideas already, If you've read No One Else Is Singing My Song you're good!, It's a missing scenes, Pregnancy, This makes 3 separate oneshot series ongoing, Why am I doing thi, anyway, season 5 speculation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatiranianphantom/pseuds/thatiranianphantom
Summary: A father.He's going to be a father.His mind turns it over and over in a loop.He's going to be a father, except not really, because she didn't tell him. She was going to give his baby away, and not even tell him.(Missing scenes from No One Else Is Singing My Song.)
Relationships: Alice Cooper/FP Jones II, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Minor Reggie Mantle/Veronica Lodge - Relationship
Series: je t'aime toujours [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775722
Comments: 59
Kudos: 86
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. i never mentioned love

**Author's Note:**

> Look, the people wanted this. 
> 
> This is going to be a series of missing moments from no one else is singing my song. Set before I Have A Voice, but will jump all over the timeline of its predecessor. 
> 
> I am entirely open to suggestions if you want to make them!

**Chapter One:**

**We catch up with Jughead. This would be right up to the beginning of Chapter 4 of No One Else Is Singing My Song.** ****

* * *

_Still I try to maintain clever conversation._   
_Not just found love,_   
_Now I'm sick in my salvation._

It’s the picture he can’t get rid of.

It’s nothing fancy. Just them at Pops. Betty’s hair is down; she’s leaning a cheek on his shoulder, his arm is around her. It’s casual. It’s a Veronica snap, probably uploaded to Facebook, “BUGHEAD” emblazoned in the caption. But somewhere along the line, someone had given it to him, and it had stayed. 

So much had it stayed, in fact, that it had made its way into one of his books. 

And then, when he moves into the dorm at NYU, it falls out while unpacking, and he can viscerally feel his heart speed up. 

He knows what the next logical step is. 

She’s his ex. They are nothing to each other anymore, so clearly, he should throw it out. There’s a garbage can right under his desk, a trash chute in the hallway. And then it would be gone, and he wouldn’t have this reminder of the keenest pain he’s ever felt. 

If he could, if he could just throw it out, maybe he’d be okay. 

Maybe he’d be able to move on. 

Minutes later, the photo is slipped back into his book, and he tries his best not to think about what that means. 

* * *

He hadn’t before known pain to be this _physical_. Betty’s betrayal physically hurt him, like someone scratching their way into his chest and methodically going for his heart. The kind of pain that starts small. 

The discomfort that starts on _Jug, we need to talk_. 

The scratching that begins on the first _I’m so sorry_. 

The knife that punctures at _I kissed Archie, for real this time_. 

It bypasses muscle at _we met a few times in the bunker._

And it starts wiggling, clawing at his heart, messily severing vessels and carving out its prize at _I was just confused_. 

Because there were a lot of confusing things in life. Hell, their lives were nothing like anyone else’s. He’s the first Jones to go to college, he’s forging an entirely separate path and that is nothing if not confusing, so of _course_ , he’s confused.

But for him and her? That was something he’d never been confused about.

They were forever, he knew it. She knew it. 

Or, he thought she did. 

Clearly, though, she didn’t. Clearly, he was a means to an end. Archie over him, the way it was always meant to be. Perhaps she never cared in the first place.

Perhaps, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the image of Betty hanging onto him by his legs, on her knees, sobbing.

_Please don’t go, Juggie, I’m so sorry, I love you so much, please, please forgive me!_

Harder still is the ability to reconcile that with three years of laying in bed together, gazing into each other’s eyes, his hand stroking through blonde hair. 

It felt like forever, then. Was he just stupid enough to think it was?

Maybe you felt too much as a teenager, and in adulthood, realism set in. The feeling of his whole body aching with love for the woman lying in his arms was a profoundly teenage feeling, so maybe it was never to be trusted. 

But he’s loved her since he was ten years old. Before, maybe. But ten was when he felt the butterflies crashing around in his stomach as she kissed his cheek. It was odd, even then. Everyone seemed to move on so quickly in their early years. Archie had a new girl every week, it seemed. People flitted from one person to the next, never decreasing in their passion for this next person. 

And for him, it was only Betty. Other girls were fine, but they weren’t...Betty. He never felt the need to move on. What was there, that could possibly make him feel more than Betty did?

* * *

That was in the before, though. He’s at college now. It’s a new life. Now he’s living in the after. Betty’s not there, in the after. She won’t be again, so he tries to move on. He makes friends. They’re fine, it’s not comfortable like it used to be with the four of them but he has people. 

The dorms are relatively unbearable, though. There’s party after party, no privacy. His classmates seem to only care about the next party, and the fact that they are unsupervised. It’s like being at sleepover camp at 12. He makes plans to move out as soon as possible, but New York rent is not cheap. He answers a few personal ads looking for roommates, and instantly likes Carolyn. She’s about his age, and makes no qualms about warning him that there “ _will_ be girls over. What can I say, the ladies love me.” 

It’s said with a smirk. He laughs and moves in the next week. He feels like his entire body sighs in relief. And the picture slips out of his book, and into his bedside table. 

He tells himself it’s just a midway point between the moving box and the garbage. 

(It’s harder to let himself believe that when he finds himself staring at it many nights.) 

* * *

  
  


A girl sits next to him in class and introduces herself as Jessie. They share notes and laugh at the other’s penmanship.

She takes the seat next to him the next class, and then the next. 

And on the fourth day, she asks him for coffee.

* * *

  
  


He’s not sure he ever had a first date with Betty. Their relationship felt as natural as breathing, and the stages couples go through in the beginning? He doesn’t even know if they ever did that. So he’s awkward on the day they meet for coffee. He’s not sure it’s a date, and he doesn’t want to think about it because he’s not sure he wants it to be. 

He’s been his own head too much recently. It’s not good for him. He thinks he’s starting to hear things. 

But Jessie is sweet, and she doesn’t push him. Maybe he can do this. Maybe there’s someone else. 

* * *

  
  


He used to look into the future, with Betty. It was never the clearest picture, but that, he figures, was because both of them had some amount of subconscious doubt that they’d ever really get out of Riverdale. 

He used to think they would want to get as far away from Riverdale as possible. 

He pictures them, kissing on graduation day. She’d have a job offer right away, because she was amazing and now everyone was finally learning that too. So maybe they’d move to California for her work. 

She likes the beach and he likes Betty in a bikini.

Their apartment would be small, but enough. Betty would light candles and forget to extinguish them, burning a set of curtains. 

They’d get married, and it’d be small. At the beach. Just friends and family. He can see her hair curling gently in the breeze, like an angel. 

He’d hold her hand as she brought their child into the world. It’d be soft, peaceful. A representation that this child’s life would be different. They’d all pile together on a tiny bed, their tiny baby asleep on Betty’s chest. 

  
  


Like he said, he tries not to think too much about it. He’s living in the after.

  
  


* * *

It’s harder when he finds the book. 

_I love you. B.,_ it reads in loopy gold lettering. 

He’d thought his heart transplanted back in place, but perhaps it was haphazardly done, vessels disjointed and skin stitched crooked. 

The stitches pop at the note. 

_You will do amazing things, Jughead Jones._

_I want to you to know, I love you. I’ll never stop loving you._

_I’m sorry._

* * *

He shoves it to the corner of his room. Like he’d shoved the picture to the bottom of his drawer. Like he’d shoved the stupid, useless, all-consuming love for her in the darkest corner of his heart. 

But things break free. The book does. Somehow, and almost without Jughead’s consent, it makes its way to his desk. And it opens, and his pens hovers over it. 

He can’t find the words. 

_I needed my anchor._

_Write what you feel, Jug._

She’d said that, and he can almost feel her hand, smoothing his hair back. Her lips, pressing into his cheek. Her voice, rasping and sweet and soft. 

_Write what you feel._

All he knows is what he feels, and he can’t transfer that pain. He can’t write it down, make it real. 

He shuts the book with a slam.

* * *

  
  


Running into Cheryl is not the highlight of his day. Or his week, or month, or even his year. 

And maybe it’s the distance, or time, maybe he never knew her that well, but she speaks quickly. Nervously. She stumbles out of a baby clothes store, which he can’t imagine she frequents. 

Learning she’s with child is, to put it mildly, a shock. Finding out it’s Reggie’s nearly bowls him over.

She runs after rhapsodizing about Reggie’s chin, and he’s still only about 70% sure that the conversation actually happened. 

He calls Reggie, and he’s known Reggie since PreK, but never heard him at that level of panic, not even in the second grade, when Ethel Muggs spilled chocolate milk on his Prada backpack and Jughead couldn’t figure out why his dad would be so mad about someone else’s spill. 

_Who called you? Did she sound blonde? I gotta make some calls, should have never walked into that sunglasses hut._

There was a full three minutes of silence when Jughead broke the news about Reggie’s child’s apparent mother, and then some words that Jughead winces at. The gist of it, though, is that Reggie has not talked to Cheryl in months, and there is a very low chance those two would find themselves in bed together. 

The lie, then, makes no sense to Jughead. What motivation did Cheryl have to lie? 

* * *

Blossoms never live without decadence so it’s easy to find her house. And he has to, because he’s a detective. Some instincts don’t leave. And perhaps, it’s a tiny bit about finally one-upping Cheryl, even if it’s just catching her in a lie.

He sees Toni, and is ever more confused. He learns that Jason DeRulo is the father, and wonders if he should even pull at that thread. 

There is a demand for lemonade, and then the door is shut in his face. 

Hours later, he finds himself back at the door, with a lemonade in hand. The doorman is nowhere to be found, and apparently reasonably lax at his job, because he gets in easily. 

Burning a hole in his bag is the book. He carries it with him now. He put one word down, two days ago, after staring at the picture for long moments. 

One word became two, then three, then fifteen, and suddenly, there was a poem worthy of Lovecraft. He can’t, _won’t_ think about it. But the poems keep coming, so he keeps the book in his bag.

_Write what you feel, Jug._

He wishes he didn’t. 

* * *

  
  


He’s ready to demand an explanation out of Cheryl, one not quite so farfetched, when the door swings open, and it’s all he can do to hold onto the stupid drink.

Because it’s not Cheryl in the doorway. 

It’s Betty.

* * *

That, of course, is the first thing he notices. 

_You know you’re the only man for me_. 

* * *

  
  


One of his poems begins with a story about an angel. The angel could choose to bless anyone; anyone in the world her green eyes fall on. And the person the angel chooses to bless is afforded a life in abundance. Not an abundance of possessions, but happiness. The angel embraces them, and they are caught for life in her softness, passion, and beauty. They live their lives with the warmth and gentleness of love, all around them, and they know, they _must_ know how special they are to have such an angel lighting up their heart. 

* * *

  
  


He thinks of that, now, as he looks at her, at the bright, shocked green of her eyes, at the part of her soft lips, at the curve of her belly. 


	2. you did your best with a hopeless case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They share a family, they share at least one sibling, their parents are living together. It was inevitable that he would, at some point, see her again. Somewhere down the road, the last image he has of her, of her sobbing on her knees and begging him to stay, would have to be replaced with a new image. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnndd we're back in! I'm trying to update all 4 of my current fics, but four is so many. This one is a part one of two, dealing with the fight you will find in chapter 4 of no one else is singing my song, from Jughead's perspective. I'm going to go into more detail about the dialogue in the original fic, in the next chapter. Here is just Jughead's thoughts leading up to it. Please enjoy, and leave any suggestions you have in the comments! I am happy to take requests. 
> 
> (also to anyone noticing the chapter names, can you tell what I've been listening to?)

**Prompt: The Fight, from Jughead's point of view, p. 1**

* * *

_Sitting on the roof of her beat-up car_   
_Half singing, half laughing, half going too far_   
_The music played over, with nothing to come_   
_In a remix of memories, the loop of the drum_

Jughead has been trying for nearly five months, to not think of this moment. To not think of the time where he will inevitably see Betty again. 

They share a family, they share at least one sibling, their parents are living together. It was inevitable that he would, at some point, see her again. Somewhere down the road, the last image he has of her, of her sobbing on her knees and begging him to stay, would have to be replaced with a new image. 

He tries not to think about it, but he fails. Sometimes, he thinks of nothing but that. And it’s confusing because sometimes the thought diverges into a fantasy of sorts. A fantasy where all his anger and hurt has evaporated, and Betty leaps into his arms, and they kiss, and everything is perfect again. The world explodes into color, things are  _ good _ again. Like they used to be. It’s a world where the future stretches out in front of them, a future where they have nothing but time and each other. Where the fantasies he used to hold when they were together are real, are a possibility. 

The complex process of sorting out their anger, talking about their fight, building trust, figuring out if they still fit in each other’s lives, they skip it. They’re just together and in love again, and Jughead is so, so  _ happy _ . 

So yes, it’s a fantasy. One he does his best not to think about. One he fails regularly at. 

More often, he tries to prepare himself for the reality. That they’d run into each other on the street in New York, and cast their eyes down, running away and pretending it never happened. Or that their parents would want them both home, so they’d have to be in the same room, but they wouldn’t make eye contact. He’d sleep on the couch, or in the basement, and they’d pretend the awkwardness didn’t exist. 

(He’d also pretend that Archie, always and forever her first choice, was not in the next house. Or that he couldn’t see into her window. That they didn’t stare longingly at each other nightly. Or worse, that he’d have to look at them together. He wasn’t in the way anymore. Betty and Archie had nothing standing in their way. When he pictures seeing them together, he can’t breathe. He’s fairly certain seeing it would actually kill him.) 

All of this gives him a sizeable amount of anger he didn’t have before because this wasn’t  _ fair _ . He was a second choice, sure, but he loved her. He’s loved her since he was ten, and he had thought it could be forever. And then the world saw that this was too lucky to ever happen to him, and it course-corrected. It shoved Betty back to Archie, and he was alone. And the universe wasn’t even satisfied with that. No, it decided to take the family, the finally stable family full of love and warmth and siblings and two parents he’d been enjoying for all of eight months, and it shattered that too.

It wasn’t fair, so perhaps that contributed to the anger. 

* * *

All of which brings him back to that door, with that stupid lemonade in his hand, and his ex-girlfriend in front of him. 

It’s a short eternity, or perhaps only a few seconds of him just standing and staring, drinking her in. 

She’s more tanned. She’s noticeably thinner, her face more drawn, dark circles under her eyes.

But of course, that is not the primary thing he notices. No, that’s just background noise, really, when he finally looks down and lays eyes on her belly.

She wears a thin tank top and pajama shorts. He remembers her body well (it had been five months, after all), and his mind shoots pictures through his head like a film reel. Betty in high school, his fingers dancing across the too-short edge of her miniskirt, across the strip of skin exposed by her cropped sweater, over the flat planes of her belly.

Not anymore. No, now there is a noticeable difference. Her belly curves, and his mind, his stupid writer’s brain, struggles to process what that means. His mind sputters around the word for it. 

_ Pregnant.  _

_ Betty’s pregnant _ . 

For one moment, he’s pretty sure he goes delirious and his brain sings with excitement, thinking this is a scene straight out of one of his dreams. 

But, of course, life would never be so kind, and the full enormity of what he’s seeing rings in his ears, the sound nearly deafening. 

Now as it has always been, her voice breaks through the bedlam. 

“Jug,” she breathes, and his heart nearly stutters to a stop. 

_ He hasn’t heard her say his name in five months _ . 

For someone reputed as an orator, the words that finally choke their way out of his throat are pathetic. 

“Betty….you’re…”

That’s it. His feet are rooted to the spot and there’s a lump in this throat the size of Texas. Her green eyes flick over him, warming him from the inside, and they stand. They stand, and they stare at each other. 

Her appearance is haggard, and her eyes are red. He idly wonders if she’s getting enough sleep, if she’s eating okay, before he mentally rebukes himself. That’s  _ Archie’s  _ business, not his. 

That name, as well, triggers a waterfall of emotions. 

Archie. 

So much for  _ it was a mistake Jug, I love you, only you. _

It had been a lie, I guess, like the rest of their relationship. 

It’s a reaffirming of the universe course-correcting. 

“It’s...you’re….holy shit, you’re…” It’s stupid. What is he even saying, really?

She lifts a hand her belly, rubbing a thumb over the curve. He’s mesmerized.

His brain, his traitorous brain had imagined all of these scenarios for him and Betty. Graduation. Marriage.  _ Children _ . And now it was happening. But instead of him there, his brain replaces his own face with Archie’s. It’s Archie holding Betty on their wedding day, everyone sighing in adoration. Archie holding Betty’s hand as she brought their child into the world. The happy family at the park, Archie’s arm around Betty’s waist, their child tucked into his arm. 

The perfect couple. The way it was supposed to be. 

That baby, the baby she carries under her heart, that’s Archie’s. 

He had thought his heart already shattered to smithereens, but apparently it hadn’t been put through the wood chipper yet. 

“You’re…” he passes a hand through his hair, tugging at some of the strands to keep the traitorous tears back. “Oh my  _ fucking  _ god.” 

Truthfully, he hadn’t really even taken in her expression, too caught up in his own heartbreak, but she looks stunned as well. Her voice is choked and soft as she takes a tiny step towards him.

“Jughead, just...come in? Please? Let’s not...do this in the hallway.”

He must not react. He’s not even sure he can, and her hand reaches out, seemingly in slow motion, and lands on his. 

She’s touching him. Her skin is still soft, her fingers warm his arm. 

Too warm. Not his. Not anymore. Now it’s Archie’s. 

He jerks his arm violently back, so fast she’s nearly thrown off balance. He sees the reaction in her eyes. She looks hurt, but why should she care? He’s nothing to her now.

He’s nothing. 

It’s perhaps the fallout of that realization weakening his limbs that allows him to be led into Cheryl’s apartment, allows the door to be closed and locked behind him, allows his bag to slide off his shoulder and the lemonade to be placed elsewhere (he’s pretty sure he places it on a wood table, and does it purposely. The condensation has soaked his hand and it gives him a small flair of perverse pleasure to know it’ll soak into Cheryl Blossom’s furniture.) 

But once that’s done, there’s silence again. 

On the fringes of his mind, he’s aware that neither of them have spoken more than five or six words in the entire time they’ve been shoved into the same space. 

As usual, Betty, ever the braver one, breaks the silence. 

“Jug, please say something. Say anything, please.” 

There’s something that’s been roiling in his stomach since...well, since that time five months ago. It’s sort of a combination of all the previous factors that have been torturing him for months. 

_ Jug, I love you, only you _ . Lies. The future he wanted. The fact that he wasn’t good enough. The meetings in the bunker. It’s not fair, none of this is fair.

Anger. That’s maybe what it is. On a surface level, and he’s not really willing to dig any deeper. 

“I just...don’t think this is my business. Not anymore. Not when things have finally taken their natural order.”

He’s closing her out. He’s pressing himself into the wall. Trying to make himself invisible, like he did when he was 15. Trying to shut everything, every bad feeling and everyone who could hurt him, out.

And she had hurt him more than anyone in his life had. 

She acts confused, and it’s a lie. Everything she says is a lie, because she  _ knows  _ what she did. He wants out of her, doesn’t want to listen to anything she says.

And he can’t figure it out, not now, not later, not ever, why he allows her to come into his space. Why he allows her to cup her face in her hands. Why he  _ leans into it _ . 

Why he allows her to guide a hand down to her belly, allows him to feel the curve of her belly with a gasping breath. 

Or why he stops when he hears the words. 

“ _ This is yours.”  _

_  
  
  
_


	3. back to what i was before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, now there are tears. He angrily wipes them away, but there are more, and Betty’s eyes are wet too, but he doesn’t understand why, because this is what she wanted. It’s Archie, always and forever Archie and he loves her and he can’t stay here anymore and watch this. 
> 
> (He’ll remember using love not loved later.) 
> 
> “You know what, this was a mistake. I have to leave, I have to get out of here…”
> 
> She pulls him back. She calls him Juggie, and that twists the knife deeper. 
> 
> I love you, Betty. 
> 
> I love you too, Juggie. 
> 
> He sees her eyes light, he sees her struggle, and all he wants is to leave. But she begs him to stay, begs him to sit for five minutes, and apparently he still can’t say no to her, despite every instinct in him screaming to get away, because he stays. 
> 
> The tears don’t stop coming. His voice wobbles, and more honesty comes out than he meant. 
> 
> “You said you loved me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. I'm sorry.

_ Pregnant _ . Betty’s pregnant. 

Standing inside Cheryl Blossom’s apartment, with his ex-girlfriend standing in front of him, her belly rounded with the baby of his former best friend, and Jughead feels like he stepped into a different world than he left not ten minutes ago. 

  
The first thing he’s aware of is the pain in his chest. Emotional pain, yes, but this is also different. There’s a real, physical pain in his chest, and his thoughts slam against his head, loud and unceasing.

_ Betty’s pregnant with Archie’s baby.  _

* * *

He has no control, none at all, at how his mind pinballs through the last three years, and then more. No control over the memory it pulls up, of a tiny Betty, pigtailed and red-cheeked, helping him with his homework. They’re seven, and she sits close to him, though everyone in the class knows boys don’t sit with girls. And especially with him, the kid from the trailer park in clothes from the thrift store. She’s risking all her friendships with the most popular girls in the second grade, and he knows it. Cheryl Blossom is already planning something mean to say, he’s sure. 

But he doesn’t understand subtraction, and Betty’s helping him. He told her she could go, and she smiled at him. 

“It’s okay, Juggie,” she says. “I want to sit with you.” 

He wanted to sit with her too. Since he was five years old, he wanted to sit with her. 

He learns, in later years, how boys his age are supposed to feel about girls. He spends many nights debating if they are wrong or he is, because he sees only Betty, always Betty. 

She kisses him on the cheek when they’re eleven, something she’s done so many times before, but it makes his stomach do this odd swooping sensation and he wonders if he’s getting ill.

And when they were together, they’d lie in bed, he’d pass his fingers through her hair, and he’d know, unquestionably, that Reggie Mantle was wrong when he said “you know what comes after the one? The next one.” 

Betty Cooper is his forever. 

Except she’s not, and she never was. 

No, she’s Archie’s forever, and he an idiot standing in the doorway of his high school enemy, with a crushed heart. 

So the sadness is the first thing that he feels, and then the anger. He snaps at her about things taking their natural order, and she looks confused. He knows she does, because he still knows her. 

But it’s a lie. She’d known how he felt about her and Archie from the beginning. Maybe she’s just trying to let him down easy. That she knows too, that this is the last time they’ll see each other. That his will be a life devoid of Betty Cooper. 

He hates, absolutely  _ hates  _ that his first instinct is to drink her in if this is the last time. 

She’s still beautiful, even as she looks tired and thinner. He remembers how he used to rub her shoulders when they lived together, and she would relax under his fingers. She’d lean back against him, he’d card his fingers through her hair, and that life seems just...perfect. 

But that life is dead and gone. 

And in this life, she  _ still  _ tells him she has no idea what he’s talking about. He doesn’t want to speak the words. It’s true if he says it. 

But it’s true anyway, and he and her, they were just delaying the inevitable. 

“You and Archie.”

Her brow furrows and he fights the stupid urge to smooth it under his fingers. 

“Me and Archie?” 

“The way it was always supposed to be.” 

It makes something dawn in her eyes, so he waits for the pitying look. 

The  _ sorry, Jughead,  _ or the  _ we can still be friends, Jug _ that he’ll play over and over for so long after this. 

“That’s not...Jug, it was one kiss. And I’m sorry, I’ll say it forever, I’m so sorry, but…”

Oh god, this is worse. She’s letting him down easy, trying to appease him. It flares the anger inside him. He wants to scream, wants to fight, wants to tell anyone he happens across that this is not fair. Because it wasn’t just one kiss. They’re in love now, and everyone knows it. 

“Just save it, Betty,” he snaps. “It all worked out for you. And I’m the idiot who had to come here and see it.” 

Oh god, now there are tears. He angrily wipes them away, but there are more, and Betty’s eyes are wet too, but he doesn’t understand why, because this is what she wanted. It’s Archie, always and forever Archie and he loves her, and he can’t stay here anymore and watch this. 

(He’ll remember using  _ love  _ not  _ loved  _ later.) 

“You know what, this was a mistake. I have to leave, I have to get out of here…”

She pulls him back. She calls him Juggie, and that twists the knife deeper. 

_ I love you, Betty.  _

_ I love you too, Juggie.  _

He sees her eyes light, he sees her struggle, and all he wants is to leave. But she begs him to stay, begs him to sit for five minutes, and apparently, he still can’t say no to her, despite every instinct in him screaming to get away, because he stays. 

The tears don’t stop coming. His voice wobbles, and more honesty comes out than he meant. 

_ “ _ You said you loved me.”

She did, she  _ did,  _ she insists. That’s a lie, because people who love each other don’t do that to each other and he loved her so, so much. He would have given up everything for her, and he very nearly did. 

But now her belly curves with a baby that’s not his, so she’s a liar. 

She touches his hand, her skin warm and soft, too soft, and he can’t take it. There’s pain, pain everywhere, but especially in this stupid heart throbbing with love that he can’t get rid of. 

He’s in pain, and he’s tired, so tired. 

She calls him Juggie again, but it’s too much. She’s the last person he wanted to see, he says. He has been avoiding this pain for five months, but apparently, he couldn’t outrun it forever, and now his brain just wants to let it go. So he loses all inhibitions, he lets the tears out, and he rips the book out of his bag, and flings it in her direction. 

Those love poems were about her, goddamn it. They were about her. And now the words won’t stop coming, even as she steps closer to him.

“You told me to write what I feel, Betty. You told me. And I tried to ignore you. I tried to throw it out. I tried to burn it, I tried to get rid of it, but...I couldn’t. And now, apparently, all that wants to come out are these stupid love poems, about the woman I can’t forget, who’s having a fucking baby with my former best friend!” 

He’s crying, maybe, and she’s crying too, something changing in her eyes. She steps closer to him. He doesn’t have the strength to fight her. She looks wounded, devastated. 

Betty takes his face in her hands, like she used to. She guides a hand to her abdomen, and he doesn’t have control over how his fingers stretch over the soft skin. He doesn’t have control over the long exhale as her forehead meets his. 

The world goes quiet, and all he hears are the words. 

“ _ This....this is yours. _ ” 

* * *

His mind doesn’t understand at first. His mind has always understood, but he finds no way to wrap it around the fact that he’s standing here, thumb stroking over the stretched skin of Betty’s belly, feeling her forehead pressed against his, and hear her tell him that this is  _ his _ . 

Just this morning, shit, only twenty minutes ago, he and Betty were as good as strangers to each other. Less than an hour ago, he was trying to accept that the book she had given him, the one with her name emblazoned on it, the same name that he had taken to running his fingers over and over again, was the last remnant he’d ever have of her. 

And now it feels like going back to the beginning. 

To where his mind struggled to comprehend the words  _ Betty’s pregnant _ because now, impossibly, it’s his. 

The baby that grows inside her is his. It’s theirs. 

They made a baby. 

He’s going to be a father. 

That’s the part his mind sticks on. He’s going to be a father. 

She’s pressed close to him, hands on his cheeks. It’s so warm, so soft. If he closes his eyes, it’s like nothing ever happened. 

“You’re...we’re….  _ Betty _ .”

“Juggie,” her fingers stroke his cheeks. He can smell her, the same scent he remembers so well. The scent he was buried in when he pressed her close to him in their bed at night. Just for a moment, it’s so good, and he’s lost. 

But he has never been able to turn his brain off for long, and there’s a voice, a voice that’s getting louder and louder. 

And the hand that strokes her belly, it finds defined roundness, not new roundness. Definition that had been there a few months, at least. A few months, while they were separated. And it dawns on him then. She  _ knew _ . 

He pictures her finding out. Her taking the test, her tears, and then how she saw him the next day, and said nothing. 

How he found her. 

How she was scared to see him. 

She  _ knew _ . This massive, life-changing thing. The thing that both of them made, she knew about it. And he didn’t. 

It repels him, it yanks him away from her, as her eyes fill with hurt. 

He accuses her, and she tells him the worst thing she could. That she was trying to protect him. That’s what she says, but he knows the truth. 

_ I was trying to protect you _ means  _ I was trying to protect the baby from you.  _

His mind conjures up an image of Betty and his baby. The baby grows healthy and beautiful with Betty as its mother, and when it asks about its father, Betty just says “he’s gone.” 

The baby grows without a father. With everyone  _ except _ him, because he didn’t know. 

_ How _ , he wonders. How, he asks. 

“Betty. What were you going to do when the baby was born?” 

She keels over with a sob. That sound, it used to hurt him. He remembers many, many nights after Alice ran off with the Farm, holding Betty as she sobbed against him, willing to do absolutely anything to make it better. 

But now, everything is different. Everything about their lives has changed. Now he’s making her cry, but he just wants the  _ truth _ . 

“It was the best thing, I swear to god, Jug, it is the best thing. You’re going to be amazing, anyone can see it, and I’ve ruined so much, and the new parents, they’re nice and normal, and I’ve been going to therapy, and, really, Jug, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I would have told you, but then you’d come here, and your dad, he was being so nice and supportive, and…” 

He imagines that the sounds in his head, and the sensations that are thrumming through his veins, maybe similar to when a fire bell goes off at a fire station. His entire body is wound tight, and the thoughts are deafening. 

_ Your dad. _

_ New parents _ . 

_ Nice and normal _ . 

_ New parents. New parents. New parents.  _

It’s an enormity that takes time. It takes its own path, pressing through his brain like blood.

_ She said new parents. She knew. She has your kid,  _ your _ kid. And she was going to give it to new parents.  _

And then, everything releases. Sounds, sensations, everything lets go, so his mouth lets out a wail, and he slams a fist into the wall. 

_ She never told him _ . 

He yells at her. Advances on her. Sins of the father, he supposes. Destiny can’t be delayed too long. 

She cries and gasps, and stumbles out explanations, none of which he hears. 

“How could you do this to me?” It sounds like someone else’s voice. Maybe someone else’s life. 

She’s pressed against the wall. She’s crying, she’s calling out for him. He remembers the Jughead Jones of before. That Jughead would do anything, absolutely anything, to make Betty happy. Five-year-old Jughead shared the sandwich that was his breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Betty, just to make her smile. Ten-year-old Jughead stole a cloth from the janitor’s office to clean up Betty’s face after Cheryl Blossom pushed her into the mud. Sixteen-year-old Jughead told his father firmly “she’s staying,” and moved her into the room that was now his. 

That Betty Cooper is a different Betty. That Betty was not the Betty that hid his child from him. That Betty was not the Betty that never even told him that he had a child. Betty Cooper would never do this. 

And he can’t, either. He can’t do this. His vision blurs, and he jolts toward the door. 

He can’t do this. Nothing prepared him to do this. 

And half an hour ago, he was  _ fine _ . 

But this Betty Cooper, she shouts after him, and it’s the words he’s relived for five months. 

_ Jug. I love you.  _

* * *

Maybe she didn’t lie about Archie. But that is a lie. 

And the Jughead from before would run back to her. He’d cradle his Betty in his arms, and he’d know that this is forever. 

But he feels himself being separated into two people, and he  _ can’t. _

* * *

So he runs. 

Her voice calls out behind him. 

“You said you’d never stop loving me!”

He remembers that day. He remembers drinking in every note of her voice. He remembers playing her voice over and over while he’s kicked and punched and cut, remembers it as a protective blanket, like a soothing balm. 

Now, it feels like the blades cutting him. 

He looks Betty Cooper in the eyes again. He presses his forehead to hers and he feels the closeness that can’t be forever, not anymore. He feels something that he has never felt at Betty before, not ever in his life. It sizzles through him, burning his insides, scorching the all-consuming stupidity inside him that pictures them dying in each other’s arms at 103. 

And he feels it snarl the words out. 

“I don’t love you, Betty. God, I...I hate you. I can’t look at you, I can’t….I don’t love you, Betty. I never will again. Now I look at you, and all I feel is hate.”

* * *

He feels what happens next, and he feels it as a contrast. It’s softness and hardness. It’s tiny Betty kissing his cheek and the words  _ new parents _ . It’s her weight as she rests her head on his chest and  _ I was protecting the baby from you _ . It’s that love breathed out, and her collapsing away from him as the door slammed shut. 

  
  



	4. how much i want you to stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheryl Marjorie Blossom is no fool, and she has been in the presence of love. Just not in her family. She had love from JJ, and now from Toni. 
> 
> And she’d seen love in front of her as well. As much as there was no accounting for taste, what her sweet cousin and the scrawny hobo have was real as well. 
> 
> (Cheryl's perspective on the events of No One Else Is Singing My Song.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took....forever. 
> 
> Work. That is my only explanation. Just....work. 
> 
> Also, fun thing about having FIVE WIPS. As soon as you get all them updated, it's time to go around that roller coaster again.
> 
> Nonetheless....Cheryl is SO much fun to write. She can just say whatever she wants, and the peasants all listen. Also she so genuinely wants to be there for Betty. It's touching, go Cheryl.

People don’t think she knows what love is, but she knows. 

Cheryl Marjorie Blossom is no fool, and she has been in the presence of love. Just not in her family. She had love from JJ, and now from Toni. 

And she’d seen love in front of her as well. As much as there was no accounting for taste, what her sweet cousin and the scrawny hobo have was real as well. 

She’d known both since kindergarten, and the bitch that still occupied a small space within her regretted never tormenting Betty about the delicious irony of her thinking Archie so oblivious, while she never noticed the hobo following her like a lovesick puppy. 

  
For years, Betty pined over Archie, and Jughead pined over Betty, and those cowards would never actually say anything to each other. 

And she, Cheryl Blossom, clearly the head bitch in charge, watched from the sidelines. 

She recalls once saying to Archie once that nobody at school liked her, so maybe there was a small amount of jealousy at the group that had always excluded her. She’d see them sometimes, in class, or at Pops. Betty watching Archie longingly, and Jughead staring covertly at Betty, eyes soft and yearning. 

It was fate, she thinks. In all honesty, there is a part of her that still thinks Betty and Jughead fated. 

* * *

Betty doesn’t show up for Biology, nor for calculus, and she’s not at lunch.

Exams were done and they were essentially filling time. They all new it, but Betty never missed school. 

Cheryl spares a thought that perhaps, her existence these days is simply so tragic, what with her discount River Phoenix and Veronica both not talking to her, that she just couldn’t take it, but again, Betty does not miss school. Betty missing a day of school was enough cause for alarm, but she didn’t answer a single text and that created a task force comprised of both Toni and Cheryl to locate her. 

Cheryl looks in places she never wants to see again. She uses half her lavender-scented hand sanitizer after checking the bunker, but Betty is nowhere to be found, until she checks Pops. As soon as she enters, Pop covertly beckons her to the bathroom. 

Cheryl’s heart twists as she finds Betty, on the floor of the Pops bathroom, sobbing. She drops down (Cheryl Blossom sits on the frigid, disgusting floor of a public bathroom) and pulls Betty into her. The girl’s arms wrap around her and she wails into Cheryl’s shoulder. 

As she strokes her fingers up and down the sobbing girl’s arms, Betty’s hand falls open and in it is a plastic stick with a plus sign on it. 

Cheryl’s stomach drops, and she clutches Betty tighter. 

“I’m pregnant, Cheryl. And he’s...I’m having a baby. I’m having  _ his _ baby.”

The words are gasped out in no small amount of amazement, between waves of tears. She holds her cousin closer, strokes Betty’s hair, uses all the soothing words she knows, all of which barely makes a dent in her cousin’s pain. 

She knows what happened between Betty and Jughead. She knows what her cousin did. She doesn’t excuse it, but somebody had to scrape a sobbing Betty off the floor after the breakup. Someone had to absorb her wails of “No, Juggie, please, I love you, please don’t leave me.” Someone had to force liquid into Betty. Someone had to take her away from the shared room awash in memories, and tuck her into bed when she finally fell into an exhausted slumber.

She’d stayed with Cheryl and Toni for weeks, and while she knows her cousin appreciates them, there is a gigantic hole in her life where Veronica and Jughead should be. And then she finds her cousin sobbing on another floor, but this time, it’s harder to comfort her, because she’s pregnant. 

That alone is hard to absorb. Cheryl fights a small shudder at the prospect of Jughead Jones passing on his atrocious fashion sense, but there are bigger issues. Her cousin is having a baby. 

She’s a little excited, admittedly. Her niece and nephew were for so long, a bright spot in a dark world. A daily reminder of JJ. A blessing, even if Polly had never really been around to parent them. 

Her heart breaks for the blonde pressed against her, but she’s not alone. The first words Betty breathes out are “you can’t tell him,” so Cheryl doesn’t. Family is family, and she protects hers. 

* * *

No relative of the Blossom family will go without proper education, so she of course invites Betty to move in with her and Toni in New York, even when Betty tells her of the adoption plan. She’s sure, her cousin says. It’s what’s best for everyone, and Jughead can never know, not ever. 

So Cheryl learns to keep her mouth shut about certain things. A difficult task, because when one has this many perfectly worded thoughts, people did and should stop to listen. But she stays quiet. She stays quiet when she catches Betty bent over her belly, humming and rubbing her fingers over the bump. She stays quiet when the cleaner brings her a sonogram picture that Betty had hidden under her pillow. She’s quiet when she knows Betty aches with love for her baby, for the last piece of Jughead she has, that she will have to surrender.

(Cheryl quietly replaces the sonogram and says nothing.) 

They are there to support Betty, when nobody else will, because her poor cousin is perhaps her only equal in trauma experienced, and now, she must carry around a reminder of all that she has lost. 

Oh, life, Cheryl thinks. Why must you impart such pain on those so undeserving? 

  
  


* * *

  
  


And then it happens again. 

It’s not hard to put together what happened when, for the third time in less than a year, she finds her cousin, curled around her belly, on the floor, wailing. 

This time is different, though. They try to hug her, they try to get her up, ask her what happened, but she bats their arms away and curls tighter, gasping out “please don’t hate me” over and over again, along with the occasional “I love you.” 

An hour later, she still hasn’t calmed down. There are no longer any tears, just gasps and sobs, and she still won’t leave the floor, or allow herself to be comforted in any way. 

She knows what she has to do, and she’s dialing Veronica’s number before she can think twice. 

When Betty is safely in bed, ensconced in Veronica’s arms, she finally lets her head fall into her hands. 

* * *

  
  


She’d like to think it looks up, just a bit, then.

Or at least, it does for Betty. 

Veronica comes over more, and her cousin brightens a bit each visit. It takes a weight off her shoulders, and even Veronica seems a bit lighter. 

And the hobo comes back. 

He’s here almost daily. Cheryl invests in top quality air freshener, but the smell never quite leaves. 

And it is good, but it’s also tragic. 

He’s angry, it’s not hard to see. He’ll talk to her, Toni, Veronica, and the tone is mostly neutral. 

But when he talks to Betty, his tone is tight and angry. 

She swallows all of it. She even looks happy to have him back in her life. 

Cheryl, on the other hand, is  _ incesced _ . She sees the look on her sweet cousin’s face when he insults her or accuses her, and it hurts. 

How  _ dare  _ he take this tone with her heavily pregnant cousin. She has half a mind to remind him that she has a bow and arrow and she only misses when she means to. 

(She doesn’t even have to kill him. Just maim or injure.)

Veronica has visited, she knows this, but she has something of her own to say to their dear knockoff River Phoenix. 

* * *

  
  


“You need to remove your beanied head from your pale rear, and step up.”

She strides confidently into the small, dingy apartment, feeling her nose instantly wrinkle. 

“Hello, Cheryl, how nice to see you, won’t you please come in,” Jughead sighs from behind her. 

She takes in the small apartment, the desk littered with papers, the pile of dishes in the sink. 

“So this is where you live, hobo. How...quaint.” 

“Cheryl, do you have a reason for being here?”

She holds up one manicured finger. “As stated, welfare baby. I lower myself to your….home, to get you to remove thy head from thy scrawny white boy rear, and be better to my dear cousin.”

Jughead’s back straightens in anger, but Cheryl has never been afraid of him. 

“Cheryl, I don’t know what you heard, but….”

“Oh, I heard enough,” Cheryl scoffs, tossing her hair over her shoulder and fixing Jughead with a steady look. “Enough to know how you’ve been treating her, something that will not stand in my lavacious presence.” 

“I’m there. I’m helping….”

“ _ Helping _ ,” Cheryl sneers. “Now that is truly rich. Tell me, does helping have a different definition in your world of mediocre writings?”

(He looks personally offended and it’s a win.)

“Because where I’m from, helping is not verbally abusing the mother of your child. Helping is not taking anything you want from a person that you know loves you so much and offering only hostility and verbal abuse.” 

“Why is  _ everyone  _ on her side? Does anyone even consider what this did to me - ”

It’s as far as he gets before he finds himself shoved against the wall, with a very pissed off Cheryl Blossom in his face. He notes that she is actually vaguely terrifying when she is truly angry. 

“Learn this loud and clear, Insufferable Smurf,” she snarls. “There is a baby on the way, so there are no sides now. Whatever conflict you and Betty have going on is meaningless, because the only  _ side _ that exists, is the side of that baby, who never asked to be here and who has to be done right by.”

Releasing his coat lapels, she makes for the door, tossing over her shoulder a vague threat about her bow and arrow being at the ready always. 

  
  
  



End file.
